The present work presents a new experimental study of the enhancement of turbulent
convection heat transfer inside tubes for combined thermal and hydrodynamic entry length of one
popular “turbulator” (twisted tape with width slightly less than internal tube diameter) inserted for
fire tube boilers. Cylindrical combustion chamber was used to burn (1.6 to 7kg/h) fuel oil #2 to
deliver hot gases with ranges of Reynolds number (10500 to 21700), and (11400 to 24150) for both
empty and inserted tube respectively.A uniform wall temperature technique was used by keeping
approximately constant water temperature difference (25ºC) between inlet and exit cooling water in
parallel flow shell and tube heat exchanger. The test tube consisted of smooth carbon steel tube of
(2400mm) long and (52mm) internal diameter. This test tube instrumented to derive local heat
transfer coefficient and local flue gasses static pressure.The experimental results show that for the
same fuel consumption, twisted tape insert with (H/D = 11.15) enhanced the mean Nusselt number
in (75.2%), (68.8%), (49.8%), (40.3%), and (16.7%) for fuel consumption (7kg/h), (6.16kg/h),
(4.5kg/h), (3.24kg/h), and (1.6kg/h) respectively.A set of empirical correlations that permit the
evaluation of the mean Nusselt number (for developing and fully developed region), and average
Nusselt number (for developed region) for empty and inserted tube are generated for engineering
applications.
